The process began on October 13th 1881, as Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and his friends agreed to exclusively speak Hebrew in their conversations.

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The process of the Hebrew language revival began on October 13th 1881, as
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and his friends agreed to exclusively speak Hebrew in their
conversations. As a result, the language, which had not been spoken as a mother
tongue since the second century CE, once again became the national language of
Israel.

Some three thousand years earlier, when the Jewish people first
arrived in Israel with Joshua, Hebrew was established as the national language
and lasted for more than a millennium, until the Bar Kohba war in 135 CE. From
that point on, Hebrew was exclusively used for literature and prayer, until late
in the 19th century with the first aliya and Ben-Yehuda.

Born in 1858,
Ben-Yehuda grew up in Belarus, formerly part of the Russian Empire, where he
started studying the Bible. At the age of three, he started learning in a
cheder, a Yeshiva for young children, where he learned ancient Hebrew. By the
time he was twelve, Ben-Yehuda was familiar with large portions of Torah, Mishna
and Talmud. Hoping he would become a rabbi, his parents sent him to a Yeshiva
where he continued studying Torah and ancient Hebrew.

In the following
years, he learned French, German, and Russian and traveled to Dunaburg, Latvia
for further education. With the rise of Jewish nationalism in 19th century
Europe, Ben-Yehuda was captivated by the innovative ideas of Zionism. While
reading the Hebrew language newspaper HaShahar, he became acquainted with
Zionism and concluded that the reviving the Hebrew language in the Land of
Israel would unite all Jews worldwide. And so, in 1881, Ben-Yehuda made aliya
and came to live in Jerusalem. At that time, it was believed that one of the
criteria needed to define a nation worthy of national rights was its use of a
common language spoken by both the society and the individual. In fact,
Ben-Yehuda regarded Hebrew and Zionism as one and the same, writing that, "The
Hebrew language can live only if we revive the nation and return it to the
fatherland." According to researchers, it appears that in the fifty years
preceding the start of the revival process, a version of spoken Hebrew already
existed in the markets of Jerusalem. The Sephardic Jews who spoke Ladino or
Arabic and the Ashkenazi Jews who spoke Yiddish needed a common language for
commercial purposes, and the most obvious choice was Hebrew. It should be noted
that it was not a native mother tongue as such, but more of a pidgin.

As
part of his vision of reviving Hebrew, Ben-Yehuda raised his son, Ben-Zion
Ben-Yehuda (the first name meaning "son of Zion") speaking entirely in Hebrew.
He refused to let his son be exposed to other languages during childhood. It is
said he once reprimanded his wife for singing a Russian lullaby to the child. As
a result, his son Ben-Zion became the first native speaker of Modern
Hebrew.

Ben-Yehuda was a major figure in the establishment of the
Committee of the Hebrew Language (Va'ad HaLaschon), later the Academy of the
Hebrew Language, an organization that still exists today. He wrote the first
Modern Hebrew dictionary and became known as the "reviver" of the Hebrew
language.

However, while he worked tirelessly to raise awareness and
fought its opponents, what finally brought about the revitalization of Hebrew
were not Ben-Yehuda's activities in Jerusalem, but developments in the
communities of the First Aliya (1881-1903) and the Second Aliya (1904-1914).
The first Hebrew schools were established in these communities; Hebrew
increasingly became a spoken language of daily affairs, and finally became a
systematic and national language. Yet Ben Yehuda's fame and notoriety stems from
his initiation and symbolic leadership of the Hebrew revival. In fact, Cecil
Roth summed up Ben-Yehuda's contribution to the Hebrew language: "Before
Ben-Yehuda, Jews could speak Hebrew; after him, they did." Ultimately, the
process of Hebrew's return to regular usage was unique; there are no other
examples of a sacred language becoming a national language with millions of
first language speakers.

In 1922, Ben-Yehuda died from tuberculosis at
the age of 64.The house he built in the Talpiot neighborhood of Jerusalem was
later transferred to the local municipality and is today a conference center and
guesthouse run by the German organization Action Reconciliation Service for
Peace, which organizes workshops, seminars and Hebrew language ulpan
programs.

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